Relentless sarcasm for your reading pleasure

Online Marketing Options for Small Businesses

As a small business owner, you are the one who has to do it all: Selling, designing, training, fine-tuning, finances, and marketing, which requires more than your two hands. You need to maintain your blog and all your social media outlets.

You soon realize that some of the social media areas you are using take up a lot of time. Others takes up a lot of money.

Obviously, if you have a lot of time to dedicate to online marketing, then the DIY stuff, as well as blogging would be right up your alley. For those that don’t have a lot of time to spend in front of the computer and hate to put pen to paper or rather, fingers to keyboard, its recommended that your business still take an active role in social media, but you may want to hire someone to do the work for you – if you have the budget.

The bottom line is that to be successful in social media tests your efficiency in time management.

There’s also the dreaded writer’s block. Putting small posts on social media isn’t a bad thing, you just want to post stuff that your target audience wants to see. Writing a blog requires some detailed thought, and that’s where you can hit a brick writer’s wall. So, what to blog about? Here’s a few bullet points to help you:

Show a step by step guide on how to do something in a screencast, how-to video, or show the steps in a series of photos

Share a cartoon or create an original one

Write a how-to article. Give instructions on how to do something

Point out common mistakes in your industry and offer solutions on how to fix or avoid them.

Offer a list of benefits for doing something

Share a list of some things to avoid….like spiders

Relate your how-to content to a current event or a celebrity. (Ten lessons from Lady Gaga

Take a contrarian position. Find someone else’s article that you agree or disagree with.

Introduce your blog post with what you specifically agree or disagree with it, and support your argument with a few concise points

Do a weekly or daily links-roundup of relevant news for your community

Find tips in other content, create a list of those tips and give links to those articles as the sources

Share your slides from a recent presentation

Share conference takeaways

Respond to industry research with your own perspective. Offer a fresh angle to spark conversation

Do a survey with Survey Monkey among your community members and create an infographic based on the results

Feature guest posts from industry experts

Create a list of trends to watch

Compare and contrast: Different products, different approaches, different companies, different people, different places, etc.